And winds are rude in Biscay’s sleepless bay.
‘Four days are sped, but with the fifth, anon,
New shores descried make every bosom gay;
And Cintra’s mountain greets them on their way;
And Tagus dashing onward to the deep,
His fabled golden tribute bent to pay;
And soon on board the Lusian pilots leap,
And steer ‘twixt fertile shores where yet few rustics reap.”
On the sixth evening we disembarked at Belem; and with my foster brother, Mark Antony O’Toole, I sprang from the frigate’s launch, and, for the first time, set foot on that scene of British glory—the Peninsula.